I watched the Cummings interview last night. Much of it I found plausible. The sense that he, as someone who is good at what he does, even if extremely unwise and deeply misguided, might have found it incredibly difficult to work with the elected dimwits, from Johnson onwards, who form our government, was really not very hard to believe.
That there was a fight between Carrie Johnson and Cummings also appears entirely plausible. That only one could win seems true. That she did was not certain, but has very obviously happened. That Johnson is now isolated with a single adviser seems likely. That the pair of them almost certainly see plotting all around them, and so choose to keep Johnson out of the glare of scrutiny, policy making and much else, seems a logical conclusion. If that means we have government by incapacity, the evidence is all around us.
But why did Cummings do it? And why did the BBC?
Cummings first. In his case I am sure the three motivations were revenge, fear and desire. The revenge is obvious. He said he was indifferent as to whether he talked to Johnson again. In a sense I believe that. But that does not mean he has forgiven him for choosing Carrie. I very strongly sense revenge.
The fear is of prosecution. The UK has suffered, and is about to again, suffer exceptional Covid deaths as a consequence of exceptional Covid policy. There is a risk of prosecution in that. Cummings is getting his defence, that he was actually the good guy in the room who got sacked for it, in early. He's ratting on the rest now in his own defence. That may be wise. I believe his tales of Johnson's indifference, and the stories of rule bound incompetence.
The desire is to taste power again. Is he really thinking of taking over another political party having already admitted supporting an entryist takeover of the Tories that is really not going to well for the UK as a whole? I am not sure anyone is going to fall for that again. But you can sense his belief that he does know the answers, and a frustration that he knows no way to deliver them within first past the post system, which he seems to have no desire to overthrow. My suggestion is he accepts that his moment has passed, and that his damage is done. I got the very real sense he does not share that view.
So why did the BBC do it? That's harder to tell. It may have simply been the desire for a big set piece that rocks the course of events in the Maitlis / Prince Andrew style. There could have been nothing more to it than that.
But I don't believe that. As Laura Kuenssberg asked at one point, who was using who? Cummings used her, without a doubt. But I strongly suspect the BBC had an agenda. It's my suspicion - I rate it at no more than that - that they sense Johnson is on his way out. And they are wanting to play a role in their own self defence.
Johnson is, I suspect they think, as isolated as Cummings suggests. He is also, as is obvious, lacking any sound advice. The consequence is clear: his instinctive, short-term, lie based populism is heading to be disastrous. The vaccine bounce is nearly over. The point at which he comes a liability as another lockdown becomes essential in the face of an impending or actual NHS crisis is fast approaching. The BBC senses his day is nearly done. They want to claim a stake in his demise. Their hope is a better deal from the next incumbent.
I am happy to be called cynical for thinking in this way. This, though, is what political economy asks. Who has the power? Who is making the compromises? How is the deal being shaped? Why is that? Is the balance of power shifting? If so, in what direction? And with what possible outcome? Most particularly, do those partaking understand that?
My suspicion is that Kuenssberg and the BBC understood this better than Cummings. If desire really motivated him most of all (and I think him vain enough to believe it did) then he made a mistake in revealing that. But the BBC did get what it wanted, which was the evidence of a prime minister and administration that is out of control and fast heading nowhere.
Who wins? Actually, I think we do. I do think this interview may help tilt the political balance against Johnson. If so, it was worthwhile. But one has to hope Cummings' career is over, just as much.
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Not cynical enough I suggest.
PROPAGANDA.
Starting with LauraKoftheCIA – I have been referring to her as that for quite some time now, no one ever challenged me – she and her BBC news editorial Mafia have been the Mission Impossible Team who have been charged with the the Narrative Management- I refer you and others to her soft focus pre election videos of selling Bozo to the masses. So that when he was installed the populace would think it was great cause Laura loved him and they loved her …
She did the same with BrexShit and Postal Votes.
As they struck down any one who offered a different take on the channel cf the disappeared Katy’s Adler.
FASCIST TECHNOCRACY
Cummings is just another in a long line of psychopaths raised to be the ceo/coo of the Pathocracy that had always financed and benefited from European/Anglo Imperialism- by parcelling the world into nations which they can then win/ sign up to debt / extract wealth with no cost.
People such as him are the real life ‘Dr Strangeloves’ as Dr Kissinger has been. They don’t bother with being populist and ‘win’ elections to achieve power – they run these clown puppets. Its hard enough with fptp hence genuine PR will never be allowed unless wrestled from their cold dead hands by revolting masses.
Don’t forget Cummings was given a test bed for his alchemy in the North East – on devolution, postal votes, Social media messaging, building towards BrexShit – using such weapons which mean actual voters and votes don’t matter – only the presentation and media messaging of the preplanned result does.
When the pillars of state have been so entwined and are directly manipulated by these who have never cared what the people really want – we are well down the rabbit hole, into the world as a piece here recently put – a facist state.
The establishment/deep state call them whatever have all but dumped 70 years of postwar social democratic hard-won gains by the grandkids of these who achieved that covenant after many centuries. They do this by becoming dumbed down by endless red top’s and MSM capture, endless TV channels, the rise of Exceptionalist superhero fairytales and restoring the respect for toffs by shovelling stuff like Downton Abbey like willing foi gras geese lining up to have a funnel put down their gullets to stuff with liver bursting corn!
Cummings is angling to be the ‘saviour’ instead of his crimes of electoral fraud and lies should be being exposed , loud by a independent media. Laura is the willing handmaiden who is happy to do her grovelling bit and brainwash the brainwashed into forgetting she brainwashed them into loving Bozo – as she is doing for Spaffings now, with her tale telling.
They really believe that the Brits will welcome Dozo to be our unelected dictator Caesar – just as the original millennia ago and Mussolini not 100 years ago were.
That is nearer to the cynical truth I fear.
We disagree
I am reading Tim Snyder’s book ‘Bloodlands’ about the ideological wars inflicted on the people’s in the kingdoms between Berlin and Moscow with horrendous consequences.
What I got the sense of last night (influenced by Snyder’s writing no doubt) was of a sort of ‘show trial’. I am almost certain that this was ‘Right on Right’ aggression and not an attack organised by the Left.
Maybe Johnson is seen now as a ‘liar-bility’ as he is just so bare faced and so bloody obvious that yet another Tory coup is in the offing? To progress their malignant objectives they are going to need someone more subtle.
Either way, I still feel manipulated by the whole episode. I think that we are being had by extreme right wingers using classic soviet communist disinformation techniques /PR.
It strikes me as wishful thinking to suggest that “Johnson is….. as isolated as Cummings suggests”.
For most MPs, the worst that can happen is they lose their seat at the next election. Johnson is doing quite well for them, with a couple of decent bye-election results, even though he seems to bumble along from one crisis to the next.
Johnson is probably quite safe until the pollsters tell him, and other Tory MPs, that he isn’t!
A more realistic scenario is that he will tire of the hassle soon and decide to quit while he is ahead especially if the NHS copes reasonably well with the pandemic. If it doesn’t that could be a game changer but I don’t think any of us would wish for that to happen.
Chesham and Amersham was a decent by-election result? Really?
I think they are petrified
Hartlepool is one of my ‘couple of good results’ for the Tories.obviously. The other, perhaps surprisingly, is Batley and Spen. I agree with your analysis that the intervention of George Galloway swung it Labour’s way. The Tories will be happy enough that Labour is 20 percentage points down from their 2017 share of the vote.
Much as I would like to see a petrified Tory party, that’s not going to happen until Labour gets its act together starts to be a real threat. Ed Davey and Sarah Green, now the MP for Chesham and Amersham, aren’t going to worry anyone in the Tory party too much at all. We’ve seen Lib Dems pick up Tory seats in by-elections before without too much change happening afterwards.
I think you are wrong on the LibDem threat – it is very real now
Cummings said there a couple of dozen people who thought of deposing Johnson within days.
I wonder who? Not the purged elements nor the intimidated back benches worried about their reactionary constituency associations and a very threat of deselect ion.
The ERG took control after the referendum. Mrs May did not, I think, even consult the Parliamentary party about the type of Brexit. Some may be part of the ‘couple of dozen’ but I would speculate that big donors would also be involved. Those with the links to secrecy jurisdictions, heads of think tanks or a few media owners?
Where does the power lie?
I think look around Downing Street – and then who funds their think tanks
The right wing think tanks are the least transparent.
I recall Robert Mercer the American billionaire, and Aaron Banks, who played a part with Cambridge Analytica which probably swung the referendum. I don’t believe in centralised conspiracies but there seems to be good evidence that confederated interests steer elected governments.
I don’t see much sign that Johnson is going anywhere, but that could change quite quickly. Right now, I’d suggest Sunak, but back in December 2019: Gove? He has been very quiet of late, and it would not be the first time he plunged in the knife. Javid is back; or Raab? They were three of the last sixth last time around. Who else could carry it off? I expect Jeremy Hunt might stand, but could he win as the Conservative party is currently constituted?
Johnson go willingly ?
but what well-paid job could the lazy sod actually do ?
He’d earn far more money making speeches than as PM. Chuck in some well-paid opinion pieces and a few vanity books (researched by the lowly paid) and you see his desired future way of life.
Tustastic
of course
silly me
has he actually ever had a proper job ?
could he ?
pity the poor rich
Cummings deposed clearly feels he needed a platform, and this programme provided one. I would guess he chose the BBC rather than vice versa, after all it is the news outlet with the highest profile. I am not sure the BBC would have had an “agenda” in accepting an offer (though no doubt it needed high level approval) though they are well aware that while they cannot express a corporate view about the government they do not have to restrain from faithfully reporting the criticisms made by someone as newsworthy as Cummings.
I would be surprised if he didn’t have a personal link to Laura Kuenssberg too. Though she often gets derided for not taking a political side I have found some (though not by any means all) of her comment pieces provide useful insight and I suspect she has been good at cultivating the trust of behind-the-scenes figures of the sort Cummings once was in order to get the off-record background briefings that inform her writing.
Cummings demonstrated what a megalomaniac he is, he is clearly bitter about losing his position as – in his own words — one of the small group who really ran the country, able for example to sack the Chancellor on a whim. While he focusses his rancour on Johnson’s wife, I wonder whether she is really the Svengali she is painted or was simply the one person in Downing Street with her eyes open to see what was going on. While what he says has to be of enormous interest, after all his account is of someone who was always in the room where decisions were being made, it can hardly be taken as the definitive historical record. Cummings is known by all of us to be happy to lie brazenly when it suits him, so we know that what he says will consists of untruths and half-truths as well as some which is broadly factual but selected and edited to put him in a good light.
There is not much favourable we can remember Cameron’s tenure as PM for, but his pithy character assessment of Dominic Cummings is one.
Of course the BBC has an agenda: it is wrong to suggest otherwise. It is made up of people who carefully assess political risk, continuously
Laura Kuenssberg will have known Cummings well. She courted me when it looked like I might have influence
And as for Cummings, he is most unwise, but was he not telling the truth? I think he told more truth than he did not
The stories about Carrie Johnmson are widely reported: that she is deeply manipulative is, i think, an acknowledged fact
“…. you can sense [Cummings] belief that he does know the answers, and a frustration that he knows no way to deliver them within first past the post system, which he seems to have no desire to overthrow.”
It is worth remembering that the early success that attracted Brexit-ERG-Conservative attention, and delivered the leadership of the much more famous ‘Vote Leave’ campaign into Cummings hands, was his spectacular triumph in a devolution referendum in the North East of England (from whence he came) – to overturn an established public opinion majority in favour of devolution of political power to the North East when he arrived, and turn it into a decisive majority in favour of the status quo-anti, to the cost of the North East. Cummings is a very good campaigner because he has an acute understanding of the prejudices, weaknesses and myth-filled sentimentalities of the British public, and knows how to exploit them, in the service of party political advantage in the digital age.